Chapter 19

¹Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, ²And say: Why did thy mother the lioness lie down among the lions, and bring up her whelps in the midst of young lions? ³And she brought out one of her whelps, and he became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men. ⁴And the nations heard of him, and took him, but not without receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains into the land of Egypt. ⁵But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion. ⁶And he went up and down among the lions, and became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men. ⁷He learned to make widows, and to lay waste their cities: and the land became desolate, and the fulness thereof by the noise of his roaring. ⁸And the nations Game together against him on every side out of the provinces, and they spread their net over him, in their wounds he was taken. ⁹And they put him into a cage, they brought him in chains to the king of Babylon: and they cast him into prison, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel. ¹⁰Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters. ¹¹And she hath strong rods to make sceptres for them that bear rule, and her stature was exalted among the branches: and she saw her height in the multitude of her branches. ¹²But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground, and the burning wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods are withered, and dried up: the fire hath devoured her. ¹³And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not passable, and dry. ¹⁴And a fire is gone out from a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit: so that she now hath no strong rod, to be a sceptre of rulers. This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.